DIY: Simple base ideas

Often, you’d want to make a base with your minis using as little materials as possible and looking as good as possible. Not to mention cheap too. Here are some ideas:

Using putty. Don’t go overboard with expensive Green Stuff, normal hardware putty will do. With this, you can do basically any surface you want. Here’s what I’ve done with mine:

Scorched earth: Just lay a layer of putty and score some deep scratches on it. Base coat it brown, highlight with orange/lighter brown and run a dark brown wash so it seeps through the cracks. You can also do a funky lava effect by having a grey base coat and washing bright orange and red through the cracks instead.

Grasslands: Put a flat layer of putty and stab it repeatedly with an old hard brush. Base coat it dark green and dry brush with variations of lighter green on it.

Rocks: Roll them into a ball, flatten some random sides and score some random faint lines across the surface. Base coat grey, wash with black and dry brush lightly with a brighter grey. You can make it brown as well if you want. Note that this will use more putty than the other 2 previous methods.

You can use other stuff like ice cream sticks, broken up and painted, cork, etc. But I find hardware putty to be very flexible in this way. If I think up of other ideas, I’ll plunk it in here. When I get a fresh batch of putty, I’ll make them and post the pictures here.